


What If

by fallendevil17



Series: Playlist: EXO [3]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Closure, Coming of Age, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26318716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallendevil17/pseuds/fallendevil17
Summary: Sehun would give up anything in this world for them to always stay as twelve. He still would, in a heartbeat. But it has been six long years and he wonders does it really matter that they have chosen to go on separate roads? They can still meet at the same destination right?-In which Sehun rediscovered the meaning of friendship and love in a secret late supper with his ex-lover.
Relationships: Kim Jongdae | Chen/Kim Junmyeon | Suho, Luhan/Sehun
Series: Playlist: EXO [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/972561
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	What If

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, E, for beta-reading this. Truly appreciate your effort and your comment, they crack me up as always

Sehun looks out of the window of the van. The orange street lights illuminate the empty streets of Seoul. He drums his fingers on his thigh, remembering the text he received a week ago.

_I’ll be in Seoul next week. Can we meet?_

He had relayed the message to the rest of the team. But none of them could make it. Minseok, Chen and Baekhyun hyung are busy with their subunit comeback; Junmyeon, Chanyeol, Kyungsoo hyung and Jongin are wrapped up with their individual projects. Yixing hyung, oh well, he only sees him probably once a year. Maybe none. He can’t remember.

“We are here.” His manager, Youngmin parks their van in the basement of a private building.

“Are you sure about this?” Youngmin looks at him through the rear mirror. 

“I’m okay, hyung. Don’t worry about me.”

Checking himself in front of the mirror, Sehun wears a face mask, and pulls his cap down so that his face will be well hidden.

“I’ll come pick you up at 3am.

Sehun nods. “Thank you hyung.”

“Be careful.” 

Glancing around, he walks quickly in the building. As he enters the lift, he taps the access card and the lift goes to the highest floor in the building. When the lift opens, he’s welcomed with the sight of an exclusive looking Korean restaurant. He pushes the door open.

“Hi, you must be Sehun.”

Sehun nods.

“I’m Minho, the owner of this restaurant. He’s waiting for you at the VIP room.” With a polie smile, Minho leads him to the said room. Sehun follows, ignoring how his heart thuds in his chest.

And when Minho pushes the door open, there he is, as beautiful as Sehun remembers him to be.

“Sehun.”

He’s back to his natural hair color. Clean shaven and dressed in a simple black shirt and jeans, he exudes maturity of men his age. But Sehun will always recognize his twinkling doe eyes.

“Luhan hyung.”

“Thank you Minho for doing this.”

The owner smiles, before closing the door behind him. Sehun sees the half eaten tteoboki, kimchi jiggae and a few pieces of BBQ beef.

Luhan smiles sheepishly. “You don’t get this kind of meal in Beijing.”

Sehun nods, and settles in the seat opposite Luhan.

Luhan puts down his chopsticks but Sehun stops him. “You can eat. I know you must be hungry.”

A surprise look showed on the older’s face.

“I saw on weibo that you left straight for the airport after the event.”

Luhan chuckles. “Thank you.”

“How’s your anxiety?”

“It’s much better now.”

Luhan places a piece of tteoboki in Sehun’s bowl. The latter ate it. Silence ensues as they help themselves with the meals, with Luhan occasionally putting food on his plate. He has always been looking out for Sehun since their trainee days. 

“How’s Chen Chen?”

“He’s busy preparing for the wedding. He had to get everything done on his own since Hye Sun noona’s heavily pregnant.”

Luhan nods in response. “How are you guys holding up? Fans aren’t taking the news too well.”

“We are good. We have talked about this and we fully support Jongdae hyung. We already expected the reaction. But we believe we can make it through. We have been through worse.” The older grimaces. He doesn’t mean for his words to come out that harsh. 

Luhan’s phone buzzes.

“Is it Xiao Tong?”

Luhan avoids his gaze, but nevertheless nods.

“Does she make you happy, hyung?”

“She does.”

“That’s good.”

“Sehun,”

Sehun stares at him.

“What we had was real.”

“You are my first love.” Sehun doesn’t know how he has the courage to say that.

“I wish I can tell you the same.” Luhan pauses. “But you are not because I have dated someone before I met you.”

“You are, however, my first boyfriend. I love you and I always will.”

“But you are not in love with me.” _I’m not the one you want to spend the rest of your life with. You want normalcy. You want someone whom you can bring home to your parents. You want someone who can bear you children and build a family with._

“I’m sorry I left. I wish I didn’t need to but,”

“But you had to.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you Sehun. I’m really sorry.”

“I know you are.”

Luhan bites his lips.

“But you don’t have to, anymore.” Sehun’s lips curl into a small smile. “I’m not angry anymore. I don’t hate you, in case you are wondering. You are my hyung, and I care about you. I can see that you are happy and I think that’s all that matters. Your happiness, hyung.”

“Sehun,” Luhan chuckles. “You’ve grown up.”

Sehun shrugs, a smug smile on his handsome face.

“Brat, I shouldn’t compliment you.”

“But you want to.” Luhan grins.

Sehun places a piece of tteoboki into Luhan’s bowl. The latter gazes at him with a mixture of guilt and pride and happiness. “The food’s getting cold. Let’s eat.”

If it isn’t for Youngmin’s call, Sehun wouldn’t have realized that they have been eating and talking for three hours.

“I have to go.”

Luhan nods.

“I’ll see you when I see you, I guess.”

Luhan smiles. “Yeah.”

“Bye bye hyung. Take care.” Sehun taps the button and he waits for the lift, pretending he doesn’t know that Luhan’s staring at his back.

“Sehun!”

Sehun turns around.

“We, we are planning to have a hot pot on the 12th next month.” Sehun has an idea of the “we” Luhan is referring to.

“I know all of you are busy with your schedules that day but it would be nice if, if at least one of you guys can make it.”

“I’ll ask them.” Sehun smiles.

“Thank you for coming to see me.” Sehun knows Luhan is trying to stop himself from crying. “It means a lot to me.”

The lift dings and Sehun waves goodbye before entering the lift. As the lift heads down, he releases a deep breath which he doesn’t even notice he has been holding during the supper. 

**

“Welcome back, Best Dressed Man.” Junmyeon greets him with a teasing smirk when he returns to the dormitory after a 20 hour reality show filming. 

Sehun raises a brow at his leader. Junmyeon smirks even more. “After all, you were named ‘Best Dressed Man” at the Louis Vuitton fashion show for two consecutive years. Look at you, going around breaking young ladies’ hearts.”

“Stop teasing me, hyung.” Sehun throws a light punch at his arm before putting away his luggage at the corner of his room. He doesn’t bother to unpack since he will be flying to Japan the day after tomorrow for a magazine photoshoot. Sehun falls on his bed, exhausted from the long haul flight.

“So, how did it go?” Sehun had told Junmyeon that he was meeting Luhan in private a few days ago. He did not want to go behind his hyung’s back. The lack of communication had caused them to lose three team members in the span of two years. They were done with keeping secrets from each other. 

He wonders if Junmyeon would have said no. Despite his concern, he still tried. To his pleasant surprise, the leader said yes. Junmyeon had only told him to be extra careful not to be caught by the news reporter or else they would hear no end of it from the management. 

“We did some catching up. He asked about us.”

Junmyeon nods encouragingly as he sits cross legged on the bed next to Sehun. 

“How are you feeling?” 

Sehun sighs. “I don’t know, hyung. I haven’t seen him in six years.” So much had happened since he left. His career in China is thriving and he is in a committed relationship now and Sehun guesses it would not be long until he hears the news of his marriage. Luhan had always wanted to have a family of his own. 

“You can cry if you want.”

Sehun rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to cry.”

“Are you sure?” 

“I’m okay.” Sehun stares at the ceiling, the memory of his reunion with his ex-boyfriend three days ago clear as day in his mind. “I just don’t know what to feel.” Junmyeon pats the back of his hand to let him know that he’s listening. 

“How do you do it, hyung?”

Sehun looks at Junmyeon, who’s staring at something in front of him. He follows the direction of his gaze. His eyes are on the picture of nine of them that Sehun hung against the wall opposite his bed. It was taken for a photobook a few years back and the youngest had loved how they looked so carefree in the picture. It had been a while since they gathered as a whole. 

“He has been an anchor that keeps me rooted even before we decided to date.” Junmyeon and Jongdae broke up six months after the relationship started. They said that it was a mutual decision. The rest of them expected plenty of awkward moments but surprisingly they were still close, but minus Jongdae's googly eyes on him. Junmyeon still relied a lot on Jongdae to stay sane from attending their busy schedules and dealing with the company’s terrible management. 

“And even if our romantic relationship did not work out, we are still teammates, best friends and brothers. I love him and I want him to be happy. That’s all that matters.” 

When Jongdae announced he was dating Hye Sun noona, Junmyeon was the first one to show his support. He was with him at the meeting when Jongdae told their agency that he would marry his pregnant girlfriend. Sehun didn’t know whether he could do the same, showing this kind of unwavering support and unconditional love.

Before he could make sense of Kris’ departure, Luhan was next to leave. The guilt of not being able to take care of his aging parents was starting to eat at him. With his anxiety worsening due to their frequent and long hours of flight, Sehun should have probably seen it coming. But he didn’t, because he wanted to believe that they would always be together, that he would choose to stay with him. The night before Luhan left, the older man hadn't said anything. But Sehun knew it was the end. Luhan had never believed in long-distance relationships. That was why he broke up with his first girlfriend in the first place when he was accepted to become a trainee in SM. 

When he hugged him goodbye, he could almost hear Luhan’s thoughts. _I love you, but this isn’t going to work out. I’m sorry._ What hurt even more was that Sehun could not even ask him to stay because he loved him too much to see him so miserable. 

He tried to numb the pain of losing him by taking more acting jobs and photo shoots while juggling with the group’s crazy schedules. He did it without complaints because they were nice distractions. He would be too tired to think of anything at the end of the day. 

These distractions did serve their purpose and he even got to meet new people from the industry. As his social circle expanded, he hadn’t really thought much of his love life until he saw Luhan again. When he saw how happy and healthy Luhan was, Sehun was glad that he had chosen to leave. He didn’t want to imagine what could have happened if he had stayed. 

“Hyung,”

Junmyeon hums in reply. 

“I’m tired.”

He feels Junmyeon’s eyes on him. 

“I’m tired of asking myself why they had to leave, or if they could have persevered a little longer, they would have made it too, as members of our group.”

Sehun pauses to let Junmyeon interrupt him. But the leader doesn’t say anything.

“I would give up anything in this world for us to always stay as twelve. I still would, in a heartbeat. But six years is a long time and I have been thinking that even if we go on separate roads, we can still meet at the same destination.” 

“But the friendship that we share for more than a decade is so precious that no award or album sales can replace that.”

Sehun knows his leader agrees with him. Working in the industry for nine years, they know fame in the entertainment world is like fireworks in the skies, beautiful but short lived. With uncertainties looming upon them like dark clouds, they can only focus in the present by doing their best to stay together as a group. 

“I don’t want to toss away our teen years of us training and working hard to become EXO like they are nothing. Those memories mean a lot to me. I want us to be able to look back at those years with a smile when we are old and have families of our own. I want us to be friends again, friends who talk to each other.” 

He sits up and looks at his hyung. Junmyeon stares at him, a hint of sadness flickers in his eyes. 

“I miss them, hyung.” 

“I miss them too.” 

Of course he does. All of them miss their Chinese friends. But nobody dares to admit it because it hurt too much to even mention their names. 

Junmyeon strokes his hair. “You’ve grown so much, Sehun. I’m really, really proud of you.”

“Hyung?”

“Hm?”

“Luhan hyung said Yixing and him plan to have a hotpot dinner on the 12th next month and he would want us to join them.” Sehun said carefully. Junmyeon gives him a look, urging him to go on. “Kris hyung and Tao will be there.” This is the first time he said their names after so many years. He feels good, relieved even. 

Sehun is scared. Although Junmyeon is okay with Sehun seeing the ex-members, he isn’t sure if Junmyeon is ready to see them again. He had taken more blows from the agency and the fans than the rest of them when the members left. He has every right to be still mad at them. 

Junmyeon smiles. “I’ll check the schedules with our managers. I think we should be able to squeeze in a few hours for a good Chinese hotpot dinner.”

Sehun’s lips break into a large grin. “Really?”

Junmyeon pats his thigh. “You should open a group chat and add them in. Oh, right, they can’t use Kakao over there right?” Sehun stares at him in disbelief. “We should probably download Wechat and you can teach us to use the app.”

“Hyung,”

Junmyeon chuckles at Sehun’s expression. “You are right, Sehun. Even if we go on separate roads, we can still meet at the same destination. We had our little bumps on the way, but everything worked out in the end. We had made a name for ourselves. So why are we still letting the past restraining us?”

Sehun beams, nodding at everything Junmyeon said. The latter ruffles his messy hair as he gets up to leave the room. “It’s been a long day for you. You should get some rest. We’ll talk about this with the rest tomorrow.” 

“Hyung?” Junmyeon turns around, his hand on the door knob. “Thank you hyung.”

“No, thank you Sehun. I think it’s a reunion long overdue.”


End file.
